“She is a mercenary nurse who has taken advantage of an old man with failing mental capacity.

We have already filed a petition for emergency guardianship over our father, and once a judge sees this woman for what she is, this sham will be undone and she will be lucky to leave without charges.” She said it loudly, performing it, I realized, for the attorneys, laying down for the record the story she intended to tell.

It was, I understood even then, a clever move, in its way.

The story she was telling, the mercenary nurse and the addled old man, was one the world is always ready to believe, because it flatters the world’s cynicism and requires no thought.